


Those Children

by Ashling



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Goodness these two are so contrary I mean I love them but they really really are, Growing Up, Matthew Cuthbert Lives, Teen Crush, between Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-05-14 00:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: It was all Jack Frost's fault, in Faith's opinion. Or maybe it was Aunt Martha's cat's fault. Anyways, the trouble with Jem Blythe started in the early summer of 1907, a few hours after lunchtime, and Faith was quite sure that it was somehow cat-related.





	Those Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> For DesertVixen, a self-described "total Jem/Faith shipper". Enjoy!
> 
> (Note: I'm aware that Matthew likely wouldn't have lived this long even if he hadn't had a heart attack, but fanfiction is for Fun. In this fic, he's about seventy and perfectly healthy save for arthiritis, and great friends with the Ingleside kids and the manse kids alike.)

It was all Jack Frost's fault, in Faith's opinion. Or maybe it was Aunt Martha's cat's fault. Anyways, the trouble with Jem Blythe started in the early summer of 1907, a few hours after lunchtime, and Faith was quite sure that it was somehow cat-related.

Aunt Martha's cat stubbornly refused to die, despite lacking an ear, most of its sight, and any sense of obedience even to Aunt Martha. And although it had lived longer than the oldest cat in Matthew Cuthbert's venerable memory (Faith had asked him), it was so stubborn that it seemed that it might just live forever, primarily to spite Faith and prevent her from getting her own cat, a nice, cuddly cat, or at least a cat that would tolerate a few affectionate caresses instead of hissing and spitting like Aunt Martha's.

It was for that reason that Faith had not left as soon as she'd dropped off the book she had borrowed from Nan (or Di; to be honest, she couldn't remember which). On her way in, she had passed Susan, who had informed her that all the Blythe children were away visiting their Great-Aunt Irma Blythe, so as soon as Faith had dropped the book off in Nan's room, she fully intended to leave. But just as she had descended the stairs, she'd heard a tantalizing meow and seen the languid wave of Jack Frost's black and white tail as he disappeared into the living room.

Aware that Mrs. Blythe (who she liked), Susan (who she sometimes liked), and Mrs. Cornelia (who she rarely liked) were all knitting and palavering on the front porch, Faith kept quiet as she followed Jack Frost into the living room, save for one small meow. She was gratified when Jack Frost responded to her little meow with his own, and let her gather him up in her arms and pet him. 

She would have been perfectly happy to stand like this for a few minutes and then steal away back to the manse. And she had never dreamt of eavesdropping, especially not on Mrs. Blythe, but unfortunately at that moment, through the open window, she heard her name quite clearly.

"Yes, I thought Jem looked stormy after the last picnic," Mrs. Cornelia was saying. "Aren't he and Faith a little old for this?"

For what? Faith racked her memory. The last picnic. Oh, that? Well, if Jem Blythe didn't like being twitted on the subject of predestination, then he shouldn't be arguing with a minister's daughter, especially not if his idea of arguing sounded like a trained parakeet that had half-heard a lecture on Calvinism through an open window once. So much for the vaunted professors of Queen's College! But stormy, now that was odd. Why should Jem care? She didn't. She had been afraid that he'd be different after his year away, but things between them seemed much the same, comfortable and fun, as it was with all the Blythes.

Rocking away on the porch, and completely unaware of what she was doing, Susan threw all that away with a few words.

"Those children are always quarreling," she said complacently. "It's their idea of courtship, seems like."

All three women laughed. It wasn't a shocked kind of laughter, either—it was a low, chummy chuckle of agreement. 

Faith jerked back as if stung, dropping Jack Frost, who meowed reproachfully and ran off. It should have at least occurred to Faith at this point that she was eavesdropping, and that she should get away. But it didn't. 

"Oh," sighed Mrs. Blythe, "I shall try to accept it when it comes with as much grace as I can. There isn't a single girl in all of Glen St. Mary with more spunk than Faith, and she's really come into her own splendidly since Rosemary and John were married. But sometimes I look at Jem and all I can see is him crawling across the carpet, carrying his favorite blanket around with him by holding onto it with his teeth. To think of him, courting! It's too soon."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Cornelia said briskly. "I could have told you this was coming years ago. With your children and the manse children always palling around in Rainbow Valley? Something was bound to happen. And Jem and Faith are the oldest," she concluded, as if to say, _there you have it._

"And such a nice-looking couple they will be in a few years, Mrs. Doctor dear," said Susan. "Not that it is bad to be ugly. I'm perfectly aware that I'm no stunning vision myself, and I get along very well. But it is such a pleasure to have a handsome woman as a bride."

"Yes, it's _amazing_ how Faith has become a beauty these past few years," Mrs. Cornelia said, cheerfully implying that Faith had been quite ugly for years and years before that.

"And with Rosemary around, you can be sure she knows how to make a decent button-hole," said Susan, as if that was the end of the matter.

Had Faith eavesdropped just a little more, it might have done her some good, because it was at this point that Anne added, "It'd be lovely to have the Merediths as in-laws, but they're both too young to be sure of anything right now. Faith hasn't even gone to Queen's yet, and I'm sure she will. She's too inquisitive and adventurous and bright to end her schooling here. So that will take her away for a couple years. And just the other day, Jem was walking around the house with a striped shirt worn inside-out. It ended up being Gilbert's after all. I wouldn't call _that_ ready for holy matrimony."

Unfortunately, by the time all three women burst out laughing and moved on to a story of a man who had tried to rob the church, Faith was well out of the house, walking fast down the hill with her teeth gritted and her cheeks flushed crimson.

 

 

So that was what they all thought of her! She had been idly wondering about it just the other week. It had been so long—years, even—since Faith had made any scandal in the church, and thus it had been a very long time since she had been sure of public opinion about her. Of course even when she was tiny and troublesome, and knew she was troublesome, people had said nice things to her face, so she had learned a long time ago to discount compliments. But these compliments were genuine—and alarming—and _stifling!_

The worst of it was that Faith could see it all. Rosemary had indeed taught Faith everything she should have learned from her own mother within the space of a few years, and done it in such a gentle and helpful way that Faith hadn't really minded. Faith could keep house now, far better than Aunt Martha ever had and certainly well enough for a beginner with only a husband to look after. And as for her looks, she wasn't laboring under any humble, maidenly delusion. It was proper for young girls to think they were ugly, and then find out through the romantic gestures of their high-born beau that they weren't, but Faith was still very new to being proper. Besides, she had a mirror, and it told her that she had a tall, slim figure, hair and eyes the golden-brown color of a fawn in sunlight, and rosebud lips. If she exerted herself hard, she could be everything a Glen St. Mary wife was supposed to be and more. 

Jem would probably go far. He was still wrong every time they argued, of course, but Faith had seen him earn his place at the top of his class. Besides that, there was an evenhandedness to him, a mix of sense and justice that made him a good hand in any kind of crisis, physical or moral. Even back in the days when the Meredith children been senseless enough to punish themselves as badly as they did in the bringing-up club, they'd unanimously and intuitively appointed Jem their referee of sorts in a pinch, knowing that. Level-headed, good, and intelligent, Jem was the son of his father and the son of his mother, with all that that meant. And if it came to looks—

"This is ridiculous," Faith murmured, and the sound of it startled her from her thoughts. She paused and looked about her and found herself standing somewhere in Rainbow Valley.

It was more than a beautiful summer evening; it was a positively enchanting. The aftermath of a generous rain combined with slanting sunlight to filigree everything in sight, from the tallest maple to the most delicate spiderweb. Everywhere she looked was rich with green and gold. Yes, it really was a sight to behold, perhaps the most gorgeous sight that Faith had seen yet this summer. 

Faith positively hated it.

"This is absolutely ridiculous," she said again, through her teeth. She didn't stomp her feet (she was a couple of years too old for that), but she put that into her voice, and her voice carried far.

Unexpectedly, there came a voice, quiet, throaty, and a little tremulous with age. "Faith Meredith? Is that you?"

Faith turned to see Matthew Cuthbert. He was half-hidden under the boughs of a birch and sitting by the bank of the Rainbow Valley stream, fishing. Had it been anyone else, Faith would have flushed, made excuses, and fled. She was not afraid of anyone, but she wasn't in the sort of mood that could bear company. Matthew, however, was not company. Matthew was Matthew, eternally gentle and as easy in his silence as the stream itself. 

"Hello," said Faith, scrambling across the stream. Up close, it turned out Matthew was sitting on a log. He patted the spot beside him, and Faith acquiesced. 

They sat comfortably for a good ten or fifteen minutes, Faith cooling down, Matthew supplying her with liberal amounts of caramels, and indulging in one or two himself. 

Presently Matthew said, "Ridiculous, is it?" in such an unassuming voice that Faith felt sure that he had no idea what she had been talking about. She also felt sure that he wouldn't mind if she said nothing, and wouldn't mind if she said everything.

So she said pretty much everything, finishing with, "Any girl would be happy to have him. Except Mary Vance, maybe. But nobody is ever good enough for her."

"You're not any girl, I think," he observed.

Matthew's compliments Faith readily took, and with pleasure; she smiled, briefly. And then: "There's nobody to be angry at, really. They're all right. I didn't think we were flirting, but if we were, I suppose it makes sense. I mean, in books there's always a fuss about love, and some of it sounds fun, but when you see who people really marry, they usually marry whoever is best that they can. And he's the best I can, in the Glen, anyways."

"You want to leave?" he said, so mildly it almost wasn't a question.

Faith hesitated, guilty. This was something she hadn't told anyone yet; none of the boys could understand, because they were boys, and Una couldn't understand, because she hated the very thought of even leaving the manse most days, and Rosemary and Father must never know, because it would likely hurt their feelings. But.

"I'm not turning my nose up at the Glen," she said. "I love the Glen. It's only that not everything happens here. I'm not so silly that I think life and death and tragedy and heroics and adventure and romance are all only things that happen in Paris, but I still want to go."

"Any idea where?"

"Everywhere." Oh, that sounded excessive. Faith glanced nervously over at Matthew; Matthew checked his hook, found it empty, frowned, and added another worm. Then he caught Faith looking, and gave her an encouraging smile.

"Everywhere sounds interesting," he said.

"It should be! It's not that I hate here, it's just—take tea. Tea here is lovely, especially when it's hot and sugared in winter-time after a tramp. But I want to know what it tastes like in London, and Bombay, and I can't think of a city in Japan just now, but a city in Japan. And I want something to  _do!_ I'll go to Queen's, but after that, what is there? I guess I could be a teacher, but my temper is too bad for that, I think."

"Hm," said Matthew. He was thinking, just then, of another girl with an equally bad temper who had ended up a very good teacher after all.

"And there's whole libraries of books about people that did all kinds of glorious things and went all kinds of strange places, but it feels I can only choose from one shelf. It's a shelf of nice comfortable books, and I shouldn't be bad-mouthing it when there are children starving and wars going on in other countries, but I—" Faith stopped short.

"Mm?" said Matthew.

"I  _want_ that," said Faith recklessly. "Not for people to be hurting, of course, but if there's trouble, then I  _want_ to be there. Not to point and stare, I mean, but to help. Have you ever seen Walter wandering around in one of his writing moods, like he's lit up from the inside?"

"I think so, yes."

"He has all these things inside him that nobody can take away. He can just go off in his head and land somewhere splendid. And I know I can never think of such things, so I have to go and live them, if I want them. But I can't. Or I don't know how. If it's not Jem, it will probably be somebody else, and there's nobody as good as him anyways." Faith sighed. "This is all terribly greedy, I know."

"Well now," said Matthew, "I'm not so sure about that. I reckon it's all right to want things, if it doesn't hurt anyone else. It won't hurt anyone if you do travel, will it?"

"Father wouldn't like it, and neither would Rosemary. And we don't have the money for it anyway, and I don't think anyone abroad wants to hire a girl from the Island, even if she did go to Queen's. I'll never get anywhere, except maybe Ontario. And that's not really where I want to go."

"I'm not so sure about never," said Matthew.

"Yes, well." Faith plucked a few long grasses, and began braiding them into a bracelet. Though sitting in silence with Matthew had calmed her down, all this talking had her restless again. She needed something to do with her hands. 

"And another thing," she added, "is that now everything with Jem is spoilt. I've seen how Glen gossips run. Soon enough people will be nudging us together at dances, and I won't be able to say anything about him without it being taken as something significant."

"I s'pose you could insult him," suggested Matthew.

"I do that often enough and he only laughs," said Faith. "Or, if we're arguing, he argues harder. Su—people think that's courting, apparently."

"Hm."

"I don't want people to think all that."

"Because you don't want to marry Jem."

"Of course not," Faith said immediately, because what else could she say? But as soon as she said it, it sounded wrong. Maybe because it was directly about Jem, and she'd never rejected Jem outside his own company. She felt free to say all kinds of things to his face, and frequently did, but she never bad-mouthed him to anyone else and never allowed even the implication of a criticism about him to be uttered in her presence by anyone else, unless they were a Rainbow Valley kid or his own mother.

Anyhow, Jem wasn't the problem, it was the marrying part that was the problem. And that wasn't the problem either, really, it was the marrying and then staying in the Glen for the rest of their lives and doing everything right. She dreaded the approving beams of the Glen matrons now as much as she had once dreaded their censure.

For a moment, she imagined replicating one of her past "stunts". But none of them were right. Announcement in church, wearing no stockings, publication in the paper, riding a pig. Some of them had been great fun (riding the pig, especially), but now they would only seem oddly childish for a girl her age, and doubtless prompt a sit-down with Rosemary, or worse, her father. She couldn't talk to her father about Jem. He knew her too well, and unlike Matthew, he could be fairly insistent with questions when he chose.

Oh, Matthew had been saying something.

"I'm sorry," Faith said, "could you repeat that?"

"if you don't want to be bothered about marrying Jem, maybe you could tell him that. Save you some trouble," Matthew said. He said it so patiently and so simply that it became the obvious and the only choice.

"I will," said Faith.

Except that she didn't want to do that. She very much didn't want to do that. She pictured herself going up to Ingleside. Trying to catch Jem alone would be awkward enough, but she could do it. And then for telling him.

She imagined his hazel eyes, which always seemed to be looking right through her. That didn't matter much, except for when they were fighting and they infuriated her. But just now she was having some trouble understanding their expression. Usually his mouth was some help; though it was always steady, it often widened into toothy grins in Rainbow Valley or quirked into smothered half-smirks if they had company, which she could always catch. But when she thought of this conversation, it became nearly a straight line, neutral and unhelpful and—polite?  That was stupid. She and Jem had been many things to each other, mortal enemies included, but never polite. Politeness was for other people, not them.

"Well," said Matthew, after a while, "it's getting late. I figure it'll be getting dinnertime soon."

Which was his extremely gentle way of asking if Faith would be all right. He wouldn't under any circumstances go off and leave her there brooding in the woods by herself, even though she was grown-up enough to walk nearly anywhere in daylight without trouble. That was just how Matthew was.

"I should be setting the table right now," said Faith, starting up. "I'll be late as it is."

"You have a good night now," said Matthew. (He would have added her name after it to give it a flavor of extra friendliness, except he had a vague inkling that calling a young lady by her first name might be insulting to her age, but calling her Ms. Meredith would never do, either. Ms. sounded so prim, and Misses as a species were beings he feared greatly,  whereas he feared Faith Meredith not at all.)

"You have a good night too," said Faith. Impulsively, she leaned down and gave him a kiss on his wrinkled cheek. "And thanks."

He smiled. "You'll be all right," he said.

"Yes," said Faith decidedly, "I will."

 

 

It was all very well making dramatic resolutions on glorious golden evenings in Rainbow Valley with the counsel of Matthew Cuthbert near at hand. It was entirely different to carry out those dramatic resolutions the next day, with the midday sun mercilessly hot and the trek to Ingleside unfortunately free of any tempting distractions. Faith barreled on grimly and arrived very sweaty, having thought out some two dozen of Jem's possible reactions, each one worse than before. (Worse, for Faith, wasn't a fight. A fight would be very welcome, actually, since they all had the same familiar contours and patterns. No, the worst reaction Faith could imagine was was being laughed at, which unfortunately was a hazard of dealing with Jem.)

Quietly, she let herself in at the back door and was astonished to find that the house seemed empty. Susan, who was always on the first floor, usually humming and puttering around the kitchen, was nowhere to be found.

"Hello?" she called. There was some movement behind her, and she turned just in time to see Jem running down the stairs. He nearly collided with her.

"Thank God you're here," he said. He caught her by the elbow, close.

Faith had only a second to register that he had really gotten freckled this summer before he was dragging her upstairs, babbling something about drawing the short straw and Susan going to the shop for baking powder. She tried to put in something about only having a minute (getting dragged by Jem into anything usually meant fire or fireworks or catastrophe of some sort, fun but ruinous), but then he flung open the door to Nan's room and there, lying on its back, blinking, was a baby.

A very fat, very red-faced, very blonde baby. The baby stared at Faith with solemn, unblinking eyes, and Faith stared back, stupefied. It wasn't often in her life that she could think of nothing to say, but now was one of those times. 

"Do you see?" Jem said despairingly.

"Where did you get it from?" Faith said.

"She's an orphan from one of those harbor families. Apparently we're not allowed to know who he mother was, because she was young, or something like that. We're only taking care of her until tomorrow morning, when a man from the orphanage is supposed to come and get her. She'll be adopted immediately. There's an over-harbor family that wants her, or something, only, Faith, Susan went to the shop for baking powder and I drew the short straw while everyone else is going down to some do that the Clows are putting on, and—and—"

"And what?" said Faith. 

"And what if she cries?" said Jem.

Faith took one look at the baby, which was doing her best to try and roll over with absolutely no luck, and then back at Jem. He had a stain on his shirtfront, and his curly red hair was wilder than ever, probably because he'd ruffled it up, a common Jem gesture of frustration. 

She felt a warm rush, something in-between being told that exams were cancelled and having cocoa on a bitter snowstormy day. Maybe it was just the two of them returning to normal. Faith got precious little opportunity to tyrannize over Jem, but whenever she did, she grabbed it with both hands and held on tight.

"What happened in the year 753 BC?" she said.

"Founding of Rome. Why does it matter?"

"How can you know that and not know that a baby can't be left alone in a room, even for a moment?"

She could see Jem coming back to himself, just a little. "It can't move," he said. "What could possibly happen to it in a moment?"

"The cat could get at it."

Jem scoffed. "Jack Frost would never hurt a baby."

Now, Jack Frost was a particular favorite of Faith's, but she could never resist the opportunity to jab. "That's not what Susan says."

"Susan is a wonderful woman and an excellent cook, but she is no judge of cats, and you know that, and I know that. What's gotten into you?"

"What's gotten into _you?_ " Faith demanded, derisive. "She's a baby, not a ghost. If she cries, just pick her up." She sat down next to the chubby little creature on the bed and gently touched the downy little fluff on her head with one fingertip. "Does she have a name?"

"Bertha," said Jem, and by the way he infused that name with more tartness than it needed, Faith could tell that he was completely over his baby-panic and ready to be cross about being caught at it instead.

"Isn't that Rilla's middle name?"

"She got to name the baby. Though the baby's new parents will probably choose something different, when they get her."  He crossed his arms, and looked darkly at Faith.

"What?" she said, though she thought she knew perfectly well what. She thought it was residual annoyance.

Jem was thinking to himself, with some surprise, that maybe his mother had been on to something when she said last night that Faith Meredith was nearly done growing up. She actually looked like a woman, once a fellow took a minute to look at her, especially sat straight on the bed, shoulders back, with those tawny curls pulled up off the nape of her neck. Her eyes were still familiar, though; they were just as mocking and elfish and wily as they had always been. They were making Jem take stock like he hadn't before. 

"Jem?" 

"Did you come to get a book?" he said abruptly.

"No." Faith sensed that he was slightly off-kilter, and rather enjoyed it.

"You said you could only be here a minute."

So she had. Faith glanced down at the baby, found no help whatsoever in those limpid blue eyes, and then looked back at Jem. _Right,_ she thought calmly. Faith could do just about anything, once she was in either a temper or a state of practical detachment, and it was the latter that descended on her just then.

"There's been a lot of talk, lately," she said, coolly, "about you and me, and so I came here, before things could get awkward, to let you know that I'm not going to marry you."

Jem stared blankly. At least, he looked blank on the outside. Inside, he was completly horrified; it was as if he'd been found out at some unpleasant secret and been punished for it, all in the space of a few seconds.

Faith repeated his name, and he blurted out the first thing that came into his head. "Who says I want to marry you?" Internally, he winced. That sounded terribly childish to him.

It sounded childish to Faith, too, but that helped her keep her calm, made her feel like the grown-up in the conversation.

"I won't name names; I'm not a tale-bearer," said Faith, a little primly.

It was that primness that stung Jem to say: "That _is_ a tale. Me, want to marry you!"

Faith's chin raised an inch. "Spoken like a gentleman!"

Jem ruffled up his hair again with both hands, like an annoyed cat scratching its nose with a paw. "You're the one who's refusing me before I've had the chance to offer!"

"Were you going to offer?"

"No!"

"Then what does it matter?" 

They stared at each other for a long moment. 

"Well, do I get to know why?" he said, after a minute.

Faith looked a little defensive. "We're too young."

"But it's a blanket refusal, right?" Jem demanded. "You won't marry me at eighteen; you won't marry me at eighty."

"I meant it to stop people from talking. I don't know what I'll do at eighty. Maybe I'll change my mind."

"When have you ever changed your mind about anything?"

Faith, indignant about this accusation of inflexibility, cast about for some change of opinion to throw back at him, and unfortunately came up with nothing.

Jem barreled on. "And when has the truth ever stopped people from talking? It was them talking that started all this, and they had nothing to base it on then, either. I wasn't flirting with you."

"We were arguing."

"That's not the same thing!"

"Maybe it looked like flirting."

"We weren't. If I were flirting with you, Faith Meredith, you would know it."

"Is that so," said Faith, arch without knowing why.

"Yes," said Jem, and now his hazel eyes had gone very steady and he didn't quite know why he was doing this, but he found himself saying, "Would that be so bad?" Not with a drop of acid in it, either. Quiet.

It was that quietness that startled the truth out of Faith. Quiet seemed much more dangerous than loud.

"No," she said, still half-trying to flippant and not succeeding. "I never said you couldn't flirt. I just don't want to wake up one day and find out that I'm fifty, and that I've never left the country, or done anything that every other woman in the Glen has already done, and then hear you grumbling about your breakfast eggs not being cooked how you like it. And think every day about how I wish I could take a steamboat to the Continent and disappear."

"Well," said Jem, after a minute, "I certainly have no desire to nag you about your eggs. Or keep you stuck in PEI, or be stuck in PEI myself, or, and I think you may have overlooked this,  _marry you._ "

Faith looked hard at him; he looked hard back. The air felt as thick as if they were both very angry, only they weren't, and Faith thought Jem looked more like himself than ever, though she was incapable of putting words to what exactly that meant. She felt so intensely nervous that she did what she always did when she couldn't stand tension but couldn't get angry: she laughed.

Jem's face broke into one of those big grins and he joined in with a fully belly laugh. In a moment, it all seemed ridiculous to the both of them. Gossips were gossips, but they, Faith and Jem, would never be traps or cages to each other, only old sparring partners and the Glen St. Mary champions of the three-legged race. They couldn't deny some small strangenesses that had begun to crop up, but neither were they worried any longer about awkwardness. Everything before had been nonsense, and they were fine. They were fine. It was all the same.

At that moment, the baby began to cry.

Jem swore and all but dived for it, clutching it to his chest like he was rescuing it from a house fire.

"Bounce it," Faith suggested. "That's what Rosemary always does with Bruce."

Jem did, with mixed results. Bertha stopped crying so loudly, but only because she looked rather startled, frightened, and possibly on the verge of an even louder cry.

It was at that opportune moment that Susan appeared in the doorway, took one look, and scooped up the baby from Jem. "Hello, Faith," she said briskly. "How's your family?"

"Doing well, thank you, Susan."

"Good. Jem, you'd better get downstairs. It seems Matthew could use a hand in the garden."

"I'd better be getting home, too," said Faith. "I promised Bruce I'd read to him before his afternoon nap."

It wasn't fleeing if she went down the stairs without running, surely. And she had nothing to flee from. Everything was going to be just the same as before, just the way she wanted it...

 

A few minutes later, Jem found Matthew, sitting in the dirt and patiently weeding his way through a bed of peonies. Jem sat down a little ways away and joined him in weeding. Presently, he chuckled to himself.

Matthew inquired after the joke with a glance of his warm grey eyes.

"Faith Meredith is the most confusing girl in all of Canada," Jem said, by way of explanation. 

He didn't offer any further context, and Matthew didn't ask for any. Instead, he asked, tentatively, "Do you like her?"

"No," said Jem decidedly. "And you can tell Mother that, if you want to."

Then he got back to weeding. He'd gone through two rows of peonies before he said, seemingly apropos of nothing at all: "And I am _not_ going to marry her."

"Mm," hummed Matthew, agreeably.

"Definitely not."


End file.
